A campaign return turns Pippa's mechanical mystery into a loose, character-led re-entry.
Fantastic Worlds Podcast comes back from an almost four-month break with a session that makes the act of getting back up to speed part of the fun.
Pathfinder dice, Romanoff ghosts and gloriously off-topic table talk.
The gist
Fantastic Worlds Podcast follows a table of players through a licensed Pathfinder Adventure Path, rolling stealth checks and will saves against a gun-toting Dullahan, a spike-clad Bear Hunter and a pyrotechnical goat that seems to object to swearing. The dice matter, but so does the chatter: title ideas get pitched mid-session, and a Blake Shelton joke can take over the closing moments.
PRESS PLAY
Find your next episode
About Fantastic Worlds Podcast
Fantastic Worlds Podcast is an actual-play tabletop show, and its episodes follow a group of players through a Pathfinder Adventure Path that the show credits under an official licensing partnership with Paizo. The dice are central. Rolls get called out by number, a will save decides how a scene turns, and one invisible character's careful stealth check ends with a click, a snap and a bear trap. The campaign heard across these episodes pulls real history into its fantasy. The players lay the ghosts of the Romanoff children to rest, and a later recap pauses to agree that putting their spirits to rest is the right way to think about it. Rasputin figures as the presumed big bad, at least until a closing riff nominates Blake Shelton instead and spins a time-travel plan involving his great-great-grandfather. The rest of the opposition is just as strange: a Dullahan wielding a gun, a spike-clad Bear Hunter with her bears, a pyrotechnical goat that seems to take offence at swearing. Between fights, the party works problems out loud. Pippa's visions trace ley lines from the arcane towers around a compound to a burned-out cathedral, which the party already knows from experience will burn anyone who goes inside, so they settle on searching the remaining areas clockwise. Character feeling gets room too. Abraxas senses himself waning in this world while a companion, her arm whirring and lined with golden light, grows stronger, and his player describes the mix as excited and sad at once. After the Dullahan falls, the next cold open circles back to the interpersonal drama that surfaced mid-combat, which the table admits sometimes happens with them. Comedy runs through everything. Bayani spends a hero point for what the player admits is a silly reason, then whips a shawl over his shoulder to summon a phantom entourage of fawning yes-people. In 'Episode 125 – We’re All Monsters Here', the table fields a question about whether their characters would get a partner's name tattooed, and the answer for Abraxas drifts toward bear paw prints. Tangents are part of the texture: a TikTok saga about Dr Pepper glasses, a favourite movie someone watches on recording mornings, and titles pitched mid-session, among them the pun 'This is going to yurt.' Swearing is frequent and the jokes can turn bawdy, which is worth knowing before listening around others. Sessions in this run open with a recap of where the story last left off, and one of those openings also marks a return from a hiatus of almost four months. For a sample of the show at full tilt, 'Episode 161 – Baby Girl Death Smite vs Smize of Gays vs We Deserve a Breaky-Break' picks up in the aftermath of the Romanoff ghosts and features the phantom entourage.
Made for: Suits a listener who enjoys Pathfinder actual play with the rolls left in, and who would rather hear a table laugh, bicker and wander off-topic than follow a tightly polished story. The strong language and bawdy jokes make it a better fit for adult ears.
What sets it apart: It pairs an officially licensed Pathfinder Adventure Path, complete with Rasputin and the ghosts of the Romanoff children, with a campy, tangent-happy table where title pitches, TikTok stories and a character's quiet heartache all get airtime.
In their own words
Your Fantastic Adventure Awaits
Why you'd press play
An invisible scout meets a bear trap, and you get the startled question: traps make attack rolls?
Press play if you want
- to follow a party searching a snowbound camp for a ritual site, one windowless building at a time
- to care how a fight changes the characters' feelings toward each other
Pathfinder combat and dice rollsRasputin and the Romanoff ghostsbears, bear hunters and bear trapsley lines, visions and ritual sitescharacter drama after combatpop culture and social media tangentsepisode titles pitched mid-session
Talks about
Best episodes of Fantastic Worlds Podcast
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A lethal ghost encounter swerves into aristocratic phantom flattery and Pippa’s barely contained irritation.
The party’s effort to guide the Romanoff children’s ghosts onward turns into a grim little stress test when a phantasmal killer puts Bayani under threat of instant death.
A bear encounter opens onto ley lines, prison-camp searching, and the funny work of keeping an adventuring party moving.
A bear encounter turns into a shaggy search across a snowy prison camp, as the group tries to find a seance room somewhere among four northern buildings.
A post-battle check-in gives way to invisible bear-trap pain, battlefield looting, and trap-end-boss speculation.
After the big gun-wielding Dullahan goes down, the quieter question is what everyone does with the aftermath. The crew splits neatly by temperament: some characters gather themselves, share feelings, and check in, while Abraxas starts working the battlefield for loot, especially…
A lantern-bearing goat turns Pippa's Cossack camp scouting into comic supernatural peril.
A mistaken cemetery leads the party into a Cossack camp, where Dullahans wait on fiendish horses, unaware for the moment that anyone is watching.
Podcasts like Fantastic Worlds Podcast
Friends at the TableFriends at the TableDice, divine mysteries, and the trouble with good intentions.
Episodes
- 1
Finale: Part 2 – Snow Privilege
Dec 7, 2025·3h 1m - 2
Finale: Part 1 – This Podcast Too Horny
Dec 2, 2025·2h 22m - 3
Episode 162 – Sweet Dreams Are Needed Please
Hidden gem["Fantastic Worlds Podcast returns after almost four months, with Dustin apologizing for graduate school and reopening the Rasputin cliffhanger.", "The recap brings back Bayani's bear-trap fight, Pippa's injuries, the phantasm creatures, and Rasputin speaking to all of them before the party retreated to the barracks.", "Pippa then meets Rasputin inside her mind-palace, where he offers power, the Baba Yaga hut, and a way out of Galarian and Earth, while Bayani later sees a hidden web of life force behind him.", "The next morning brings level 15, Minette restoring Abraxas and introducing the glowing coatl Bennu, and Bayani's phytokineticist rose-whip arm."]
Oct 22, 2025·1h 23m·5 clips - 4
Episode 161 – Baby Girl Death Smite vs Smize of Gays vs We Deserve a Breaky-Break
Hidden gemFantastic Worlds Podcast episode 161 centers on a Pathfinder fight where the supposed Romanoff child ghosts turn out to be animate dreams.
Sep 22, 2025·1h 11m·5 clips - 5
Episode 160 – Bear-on-Bear Action
Hidden gemFantastic Worlds Podcast Episode 160, "Bear-on-Bear Action," starts with the Bear Hunter aftermath and a bear cub named Paddington.
Aug 23, 2025·48m·4 clips - 6
Episode 159 – Half-Ass, Part-Ass, Whole-Ass
Hidden gem["Fantastic Worlds Podcast episode 159, \"Half-Ass, Part-Ass, Whole-Ass,\" pairs a Dullahan-with-a-gun recap with a fight over who is keeping the party together.", "Abraxas chooses battlefield surveying over the emotional check-in, and the table treats that distance as a real change from his usual grounded presence.", "Minette is described as trying to be general, healer, and emotional support at once, while Bayani is framed as burning himself out and lying about it.", "The session then moves toward a barn near the cathedral, where a lantern with a soul in it, a seance plan, a hidden bear trap, and three polar bears escalate the scene into combat."]
Aug 6, 2025·1h 19m·5 clips - 7
Episode 158 – Shooketh Not Stirred
Hidden gemFantastic Worlds Podcast pivots from a mistaken cemetery read to a Cossack camp filled with six Dullahans on fiendish horses.
Jul 23, 2025·1h 3m·4 clips - 8
Episode 157 – This is Gonna Yurt!
Pippa slips into a barn containing a maggot-infested undead goat with a glowing lantern around its neck.
Jun 29, 2025·1h 3m·2 clips - 9
Episode 156 – Menet's Leg Bonus
Fantastic Worlds Podcast’s Episode 156 follows the party after Heidi’s character, Fiat, leaves to find her paramour.
Jun 11, 2025·1h·2 clips - 10
Episode 155 – Victim-Blaming a Dragon
Jess opens the Fantastic Worlds Podcast episode with a memorial for Dustin, who died in March 2025, and says the seven-year project will end after its remaining releases.
May 28, 2025·58m·2 clips - 11
Episode 154 – Ray of F*** You
Episode 154 opens with the party fleeing purple flames at the monastery and entering a barracks where every wall is "splattered with gore." A four-armed, two-headed chitin drops from the ceiling, and Pippa's natural-20 disintegrate deals 416 damage (24d6 plus 24, times four).
Sep 25, 2024·1h 12m·2 clips - 12
Episode 153: Into the Bare-acks
Hosts of Fantastic Worlds Podcast open Episode 153 with a tribute to a host's late father, who beat Dragon Warrior with him after a Nintendo Power subscription.
Sep 12, 2024·1h 29m·2 clips - 13
Episode 152 – A Serious Brain Freeze
Dustin opens Episode 152 by having all five players introduce themselves, including Heidi, who is making her 21st appearance, and by announcing that the party reached level 14.
Aug 28, 2024·1h 29m·2 clips - 14
Episode 151- A Game of Telephone
Aug 14, 2024·1h 54m - 15
Episode 150 – An Agile Corgisbord of Pain and Suffering
Jul 31, 2024·1h 1m - 16
Episode 149 – Dermatologist Approved
Jul 18, 2024·1h 14m - 17
Episode 147 – Literal Foreshadowing
Jul 10, 2024·1h 43m - 18
Episode 147 – Literal Foreshadowing
Nov 1, 2023·1h 43m - 19
Episode 146 – Sugar High
Oct 19, 2023·1h 26m - 20
Episode 145 – Abraxas Get your gun
Oct 4, 2023·1h 26m - 21
Episode 144 – You’re Still My Babe
Sep 20, 2023·1h 13m - 22
Episode 143 – Shaken, Not Stirred
Sep 6, 2023·1h 26m - 23
Episode 142 – Spa-loosh
Aug 23, 2023·58m - 24
Episode 141 – One Girl Enters, Two Girls Leave
Aug 11, 2023·1h 11m - 25
Episode 140 – Are You There, God? It’s Me, Ronald
Jul 26, 2023·1h 11m - 26
Episode 139 – Storm-In Norman and the Rush In Plan
Jul 12, 2023·1h 21m - 27
Episode 138 – Werewolves are Like Tofu
Jun 28, 2023·1h - 28
Episode 137 – Getting the Icy Shaft
Jun 14, 2023·1h 11m - 29
Episode 136 – Take a Fiadh!
May 31, 2023·1h 26m - 30
Episode 135 – "Hole"y Damage
May 17, 2023·1h 37m - 31
Episode 134 – #NotAllCrocs
May 3, 2023·48m - 32
Am I the Villain – Episode 01 – Adventurer or Villain?
Feb 7, 2023·34m - 33
Season Finale Message from FWP
Nov 1, 2022·5m - 34
Episode 133 – Popping Off at the Worm Prom
Sep 21, 2022·1h 22m - 35
Episode 132 – Crystals & Vibe Checks
Sep 7, 2022·1h 12m - 36
Episode 131 – Electro Chicken Disco
Aug 24, 2022·1h 17m - 37
Episode 130 – Hearts and Tears
Aug 10, 2022·1h 27m - 38
Episode 129 – Out of the Blue
Jun 15, 2022·1h 3m - 39
Episode 128 – Too Peppy To Be a Threat
Jun 1, 2022·1h - 40
Episode 127 – Laughter Before Death
May 20, 2022·1h 12m - 41
Episode 126 – To All the Bears I’ve Loved Before
May 4, 2022·1h 8m - 42
Episode 125 – We’re All Monsters Here
A group of players continue a fantasy role-playing game, discussing character tattoos and a recent battle.
Apr 20, 2022·1h 17m - 43
Episode 124 – Whip Out The Calculator
The game master and players discuss recent battles and resource management in their tabletop RPG campaign.
Apr 6, 2022·1h 8m - 44
Episode 123 – One Billion Damage
Mar 10, 2022·1h 15m - 45
Episode 122 – The Bones Are Always Going to Snap
Feb 23, 2022·46m - 46
Episode 121 – Mommy's Little Eco-Terrorist
A fantasy role-playing game session where players battle a frost drake and defend against a siege tower pushed by hydras.
Feb 9, 2022·1h 7m - 47
Episode 120 – Scheming in the Wind
Jan 26, 2022·55m - 48
Episode 119 – Fluid Flows
Jan 12, 2022·50m - 49
Episode 118 – Good for the Goods
Dec 29, 2021·1h 13m - 50
Let's Discuss Level 10!
Dec 17, 2021·1h 10m